Obama pledges labor support

President Barack Obama vowed Wednesday to keep fighting for union-friendly legislation, as he urged labor leaders to go to the polls for Democrats in the upcoming elections.

“You have to remind them for the next three months this election's a choice,” he told the AFL-CIO Executive Council at the Washington Convention Center. “You've got these folks who drove America's economy into a ditch. And for the last 20 months, we put on our boots and we got into the mud.”

Story Continued Below

Obama pointed out that his administration has “consistently” carried out policies to strengthen workers’ salaries and benefits. He passed the Fair Pay Act to end wage disparities between men and women doing the same jobs, extended unemployment benefits and reversed Bush-era executive orders designed to bust up organized labor.

“And we are going to keep on fighting to pass the Employee Free Choice Act,” said Obama, as union leaders gave him a standing ovation for his commitment to a controversial “card check” bill that would make it easier to create unions in non-union workplaces. Acknowledging that pushing the legislation through the Senate will “continue to be tough,” the president again pledged to “keep on pushing.”

But workers around the country are angry with the pace of changes the president promised on the campaign. Many states continue to grapple with double-digit unemployment, while crumbling rust-belt towns are still waiting for Obama’s vision of new jobs in old factories, manufacturing clean-energy components like windmill parts or solar panels.

The president said he understands how they feel.

“They're frustrated,” he said. “They've got every right to be frustrated. And I am happy as president of the United States to take responsibility for making decisions now that are going to put us in a stronger position down the road. And they need to know that – that we're going to be working with you to make sure that we're putting ourselves in a position where folks are working and working for a good wage and good benefits.”

Obama also addressed the plight of middle-class workers in a bad economy, struggling to make house payments or save for their children’s college education while worried about keeping their jobs.

“That pain goes beyond just the financial pain,” he said. “It goes to who they are as a person. It hits them in their gut.”

The president thanked the union for its role in his first-term legislative victories — health care and Wall Street reform — as well as pressing for middle class tax cuts and reforms reigning in special interests.

And he credited the AFL-CIO with jump-starting a new clean energy economy and keeping the jobs of the future in the United States. This new economy will work for everybody, “not just a privileged few,” he said.

Echoing his message to Chrysler autoworkers last week, Obama reiterated his belief that there is no better worker than the American worker. The president remarked that if he was a coal miner or teacher, he’d want a union representing him.

“The message I want to deliver to our competitors and to those in Washington who've tried to block our progress at every step of the way is that we are going to rebuild this economy stronger than before,” he said. “And at the heart of it are going to be three powerful words: Made in America.”